Nobody likes new guns and gear more than I do. But, we all know that carrying neat equipment doesn’t make a person a more difficult target. The most important factor to winning a violent attack is what we have inside us. It’s that ability to spot trouble, the ability to avoid it if we can and that ability to deal with it decisively when there are no other options. My job is really not to teach so much as it is to try to get people to think, evaluate their own situation and find ways to improve that situation.
My situation is that I live in an area that really has very little violent crime, the rural Southwest. I have to continually fight the inclination to become complacent. After all, bad things rarely happen around here. All of that changes, I have to remind myself, if I become the victim of that rare criminal attack. And I have to remember that it will probably take a deputy sheriff 30 minutes, or more, to get here. That should be reason enough, I remind myself, why I need to stay alert and not let my guard down.
Recently, I read a report that Americans are becoming increasingly obese. Staying in good physical condition is a defensive technique that we rarely talk about. Yet it is very important. Dealing with a violent attack puts extreme pressures on the body. Our blood pressure goes up and that can quickly lead to heart attacks and strokes. A 5-minute encounter can quickly lead to death’s door in more ways that one. Getting into some kind of decent physical shape is an important factor that too few people give thought to.
From reading many of the comments on social media, it is clear that too many people spend time imagining situations where they become the hero of the day. When they really need to spend time working on developing realistic responses to realistic encounters. My fear is that too few people even think about this at all until it is too late. There response is, “Oh no! What do I do now!” when it ought to be, “They told me this could happen and I know just what to do about it.”
You, whether you have a gun on or not, are the deciding factor in dealing with a dangerous encounter. Don’t give me that old “Indian not the arrow” stuff. In fact, you don’t need to give me anything. Your time would better spent in self-evaluation. Realistically examine your own weaknesses and figure out what you can do about it to become a harder target. Improving your awareness, your physical situation, and your defensive tactics, are all more important than what kind of gun you carry.
